Protective storage receptacle



Aug. 24, 1943. l. KAMMAN PROTECTIVE STORAGE RECEP''ACLE Filed Feb. 9, 1942 m ITJ- ---l:-Illltlf i--- I WMP-:F----bb .ylmiwift A Al@ m \\^^WUV f y f n WN. MUN. mwN M f mm uw N mw N MN N @L d n mm \m, a 1w N25/ OWHIQWIIIIIWQMyw@ um WHHMMIHMIIMMMIIHIIIHMIIH HMHHHUHNN., \|..v n .6N NN 6U mw www All) Patented ug. 24, 1943 OFFICE PRTECTIVE STORAGE RECEPTACLE lisadore Kamman,

` Gardner, Mass., assigner to Kamman Furniture, Inc., corporation of New York Philadelphia, Pa., a

Application February 9, 1942, Serial No. 430,115 1 Claim. (Cl. 20G- 10) The present invention relates to protective storage receptacles for storing and protecting from moths and the like those articles of apparel and of household use which are subject to damage by such insects.

At the present time there are several ways which are commonly employed for protecting such articles from the ravages of these insects. One method is to wrap the article with camphor, naphthalene, commonly known as moth balls, or other suitable protective material, in cloth or paper wrappers. Ofter the moth balls are placed in the various pocketsrof the garments which are then hung in a more or less tight closet. Another common practice is to fold the garments or other articles with moth balls scattered between the folds, placing the folded garments in drawers of storage chests or other receptacles.

While these methods are reasonably effective in protecting the articles, they not only involve time and trouble in preparing thev articles for storage and removing them therefrom, but due to the intimate contact of the moth balls or other protective material, the garments become so saturated with the pungent odor of such'mate-I rial that they `areuniit for immediate use after they have been removed from storage, requiring a considerable period of time for airing to permit the objectionable smell to disappear.

It is the object of the present invention to prof vide a simple and convenient storage receptacle in which the garments' or other articles which require protection may be easily and quickly placed and from which they similarly may be easily and quickly removed, at all times being protected from the moths by a screen, as it were, of strong vapor of the moth balls or other material which guards any clearance space or crack through which they might gain access to the interior of the receptacle, sufficient vapor being also supplied directly to such interior to protect from any moths already in the receptacle or garments. v

A further object of the invention is to provide the storage receptacle, preferably a drawer of a chest or the like, with a space or recess in the Wall or front of the drawer, open at the top to receive the moth balls and to permit the escape of the vapor therealong, and having communieating passages from the recess to the interior of the drawer to permit the vapor also to pass directly into the interior of the drawer into contact with the garments stored therein.

To the above ends the present invention consists in the drawer or other receptacle embodying the features of construction shown in the accompanying drawing and described in this speciiication and particularly defined in the claim appended hereto.

In the drawing,l which illustrates a preferred form of the present invention, Fig. l is a top plan of the front of a drawer of a storage chest or the like and portions of the sides and bottom, constructed in accordance with the present invention, with certain portions broken away to show the parts beneath; Fig. 2 is a rear elevation of such drawer front with the sides and bottom of the drawer in section, showing the method of tilting the closures of the top of the recess to permit their easy removal, also with parts broken away; and Fig. 3 is a vertical section of the drawer front on the line 3 3 of Fig. l, looking in the direction of the arrows.

In aplying the present invention to the common type of chest drawer, a recess or pocket 5 is formed in the back face of the drawer front, conceivably by means of a plurality of saws or similar rotating tool, which removes the material from the back face approximately two-thirds of the distance to the front face and downwardly for perhaps half the distance from the top edge of the drawer to the bottom, leaving end walls 'I of largeradii of curvature, and a flat bottom 9 for approximately half the length of the recess. Within the recess are spacer blocks il spaced from the end walls and from one another dis- 'tances slightly greater than the diameter of a moth ball. These blocks are set below the level of the top of the drawer a distance equal to the thickness of the top closures I3 which normally rest upon the top faces of the blocks and are provided with a plurality of openings or passages I 5. 'I'he spacer blocks, which are both formed with a groove I6 on their top faces, extend the lengths thereof beneath the passages I5 in the closures. They are preferably glued to the back of the recess and are provided with rounded ends, as shown, their outer ends Il being rounded on the bottom to permit the free passage of moth balls to be inserted in the recess through the opening 2 I and being rounded at their inner and uper ends, as at 23, so that by pressing down upon the inner end 25 of a closure piece the outer end of the latter may be raised as shown in Fig. 2, to permit it to be clasped by the hand and lifted out to allow moth balls 25 to be supplied to the end portions of the recess. The adjacent inner ends of the spacer blocks are separated to provide a suicient width of passage 2'1 through permit circulation of air between the recess and the interior of the drawer to carry the Vapor of the moth balls or other protective material to the garments stored in the receptacle. These openings are shown in Fig. 2 in an ornamental design to add attractiveness to the construction.

The usual sides 3l and bottom 39 are provided for the drawer, as well as a back which is not shown in the drawing.

In use, the closures I3 are removed and the desired amount of moth balls inserted in the recess through the middle opening 27 and the end openings 2 l. Preferably the recess or pocket 5 is of a size to hold the entire contents of the standard box or package in which the moth balls are sold to the public, thus avoiding the objectionable odors which emanate from an opened, partially filled box of these balls standing on a medicine closet shelf or in some other open space. After lilng the recess, the closures are replaced and the drawer is ready to receive the garments or other articles. These may be folded and stored in the drawer immediately or at some time in the future and from time to time without the necessity of hunting up a supply of moth balls to pack them in and around the garments whenever they are to be put in storage.

From time to time the amount of moth balls or other material in the recess may be checked by merely opening the drawer slightly and lifting one of the closures, and more moth balls may be added, as may be required, to maintain the proper density of vapor within the drawer.

By reason of the channels or grooves in the top spacers and the overlying passages in the closure, the vapor from the moth balls is supplied directly to the top of the drawer iront, thus sealing the crack or clearance between the top of the drawer front and the adjacent crossmember of the chest with a strong vapor screen of protective material which will effectively prevent the entrance of any moths through such clearance space into the storage drawer.A The vapor also passing through the openings in the panel, supplies a suiiicient amount to protect the garments, yet without saturating them to such an objectionable extent as when the moth balls are packed directly in and around the garments themselves.

The container for the moth balls being formed in the front of the drawer, it may be filled or inspected with only a minimum opening of the drawer being required, and when the garments are placed in or removed from the drawer, there is no disturbance of the protective material, or

requirement for an additional supply. Being formed in the drawer front, these recesses ork containers reduce the capacity of the drawer by only the thickness of the panel, and if desired, this inner wall could obviously be constructed in such manner that it did not project at all into the interior of the drawer.

While the invention has been described as eml bodied in a, drawer of a storage chest, it is obvious that it could beapplied to other types of storage receptacles.- Nor is it limited to use with naphthalene or moth balls, as other well known protective materials could be used both for moths as well as for other destructive insects.

Having thus described the invention, what is claimed is:

A protective storage drawer having a wooden front with its back face cut awayto form a recess extending along the back face of the front, with curved end walls and substantially straight bottom, a pair of spacer blocks secured in the recess adjacent the top of the drawer front, spaced from the ends of the recess and from one another to provide lling openings, one of the ends of each block being downwardly curved, a perforated panel covering the recess and secured to the back face of the drawer front and .to the spacer blocks, the top edge of the panelbeing substantiallyflush with the top of the drawer front, and a pair of removable closures supported by the spacer blocks with their top surv faces substantially flush with the top of the drawer front, the closures normally closing with a loose t the top of the recess and one end of each closure overlying the curved end of a spacer block to facilitate the removal of the closure to permit protectivev material to be supplied through the ller opening to the interior of the recess.

ISADORE KAMMAN. i 

